Look, everyone makes excuses about workouts.
And everybody misses a workout once in a while.
One of the best excuses to miss a workout? Traveling. It can be an excuse to eat crap also.
I guarantee that Marisa Miller travels more than you do.
While Marisa credits strength training, cardio, pilates and surfing to getting her wicked body – she doesn’t always have access to a great gym at every location she has to travel to.
I also guarantee that she doesn’t make any excuses about it.
Marisa has a wicked travel workout, and it doesn’t require anything you couldn’t bring in your luggage.
Her workout consists of classic bodyweight staples like pushups and split squats.
Of course she does full pushups on her toes, with perfect form: A tight core and a straight line from her heels through the crown of her head.
Split squats are awesome because you can get a wicked leg workout with little or no extra weights. You could use your bodyweight, some light dumbbells, or even your luggage.
She mixes up bodyweight pushing and squatting movements with bodyweight “cardio” movements like mountain climbers, bicicles and speed skaters.
Marisa says she loves boxing and spinning, but usually she travels too much to make it to classes regularly. Some of my clients have the same problem, but without the travelling.
Her favorite workout is surfing! If you’ve never surfed, you be amazed what an awesome workout it is paddling out wave after wave for a few hours.
Marisa says that surfing clears her head and just “Doesn’t feel like working out.”
It’s true, you’re allowed to enjoy working out. Strength training legend Dan John has taught me that great workouts often look like play instead of work.
Surfing would definitely qualify. So would climbing, ultimate frisbee, and watching Kiana’s Flex Appeal.
Marisa’s travel workouts tend to revolve around bodyweight movements and band movements. The biggest upside of using a band is that it’s portable. You can throw some bands in your luggage and take them anywhere.
Lets get real, bands mostly suck for all the-time-workouts. But for a once in a while on the road workout, they’re invaluable.
In fact, they totally rock for adding some pulling movements to a travel workout routine to get that push/pull balance you always need. If you can already rock pullups, and you can find a tree branch, that’ll work too. In the meantime, there’s bands.
Marisa ends up doing a lot of workouts on the road. But when she has a big show or shoot coming up, she’ll work out with her personal trainer for an hour per day. Strength training with her trainer she gets extra lean and toned.
Marisa says she “Wants things to bounce, but not jiggle!” Amen sister.
People are always saying stuff like “Oh they’re all totally airbrushed and photoshopped… You can’t Photoshop a runway walk, so you know Marisa is the real deal:
Believe it or not Marisa’s biggest challenge isn’t always traveling – it’s staying home! Her husband, Griffen Guess eats like crap.
Marisa told Cosmopolitan: “I hadn’t had soda in about five years, and I came home to find this thing in the fridge that rolls soda cans out like a dispenser. I’m like, What are you doing to me?”
There is a gem of wisdom there: She hadn’t had soda in five years, and she was pissed off that it was in her house!
This is a metaphor for everything you know you shouldn’t eat, but still do. Don’t have it in your house. And if it is in your house, blame it on your husband.
Marisa Miller does not look like that by accident.
She does solid, basic work outs, she doesn’t miss workouts because she has a travel workout, and she skipped soda (and who knows how many other crap foods) for at least half a decade.
What I’m getting at is that if you build the food and fitness habits that Marisa has, you’ll completely transform your body.
Every month my clients lose another inch off their waist – I always ask them: “What do you think you did right this month?” And they always get this puzzled look on their face… then it hits them! “I ate right and I did the workouts!”
It’s not an accident. It’s not magic. It’s not genetic. You can transform your body, you just need to stop making excuses and create awesome workout and food habits.
By Josh Hillis
CPT, PES, RKC2
author of the ever-popular fat loss e-book: The Stubborn Seven Pounds
Hey Josh, thanks for this article, it’s so motivational! I really want to try adding kettlebell exercises like the kettlebell swing to my routine but the gym at my college doesn’t have kettlebells. Is there a way I can still do exercises similar to the kettlebell swing, etc. but with dumbells?
Her stomach is amazing….but it kinda looks like she doesn’t eat a thing. Ever – just in her stomach!
I recommend doing swings with a gripper plate – check this article/video:
https://joshhillis.com/articles/2008/02/dumbbell-swings.html
S’posedly she’s a girl who isn’t afraid to eat. She just has really good eating habits, and really good workout habits.
When you think about it in terms of world class eating habits = world class body, it doesn’t seem quite as extreme.
I’ve had clients who got abs like that, and really it wasn’t that they didn’t eat, it was that they really, truly, had world class eating habits. It wasn’t a 12 week transformation, it was world class eating habits for life.
Is she doing the squat in the picture correctly? It looks like her knee is over her toes.
So what the heck does she eat..lol! i’ll start today! 🙂
Great article and great blog!
I have noticed that people tend to see people like her and assume that they “dont eat” or eat very little. On a well designed diet and after some time, your body will not only adapt to a cleaner diet, but you may also feel fuller.
The answer is not to stop eating, or simply cut calories, but to design a meal plan and stick to it!
Josh, I thought you advocate that girls keep their “girl parts.” If it wasn’t for Marisa’s generous breast implants, on her diet and exercise routine she would have the stringy, if sinewy, body of an adolescent boy. Her breasts are wider than her hips. Not a shape found in nature; not the shape of a healthy, fertile woman.
Personally, I think she’s way too skinny. I don’t want to look like that even though I don’t want to look the way I do right now either. I want to look lean and strong but with a woman’s shape. As the last lady said if it weren’t for her breasts, she would look like a boy.
I totally agree. I think most of the other VS models are gorgeous (even if they have breast implants as well…) but Marissa Miller’s appeal is completely lost on me. I know this site isn’t about proper skin care (her skin looks really aged and leathery from tanning) but her body would look totally imbalanced without the breast implants.
Just to add, because my last post might like I’m just bitter, I do not deny that Marisa might be super fit, in great health, strong for her size, etc. The point I wanted to make is that when a woman’s body fat percentage becomes that low, and her body becomes that lean, the fat disappears from ALL over her body, INCLUDING the breasts. That is not how most of us women who can’t afford/don’t want breast implants want to look like. I understand Ms. Miller’s job description requires her to have large breasts and a very thin body. Fine. But maybe us normal folks should have other models of fitness that don’t involve the need for plastic surgery.
Too thin and no sex appeal. A guy in work just walked past, stopped and said “that girls looks like she doesn’t eat”
What does she eat to qualify for “world class eating habits” ????
In a split squat it’s unavoidable. You still want to keep the weight on your heels, but keeping your center of gravity over your heels requires your knee to come slightly forward.
Definitely not recommended for people with jacked up knees. But for people with healthy knees it’s totally fine.
As they say – your knees come over your toes any time you walk up a flight of stairs.
Olympic Weightlifters squat with their knees coming over their toes all of the time, but they’ve worked into it.
Knees and toes is more of an order of operations thing than a hard and fast rule on normal squats –
1.) Butt goes back first, and then
2.) knees come forward a little
This is a topic that I totally love, so maybe I’ll do an article on it. The short version is – as trainers we say certain things at certain times and other things at other times –
When someone is new to working out, I really hammer that their knees can’t come over their toes. And when you are new, your knees really can’t. People don’t have good enough movement patterns and they don’t have enough strength in a full range of motion. At that stage they can hurt themselves.
As you get some strength and we work out your bad movement patterns, we then work into lower and lower squats. To get your butt lower than your knees, your knees have to come forward a little, and it’s totally ok.
A split squat, like that, is kind of a high squat and usually people can handle it if they’ve been working out for a few months.
If someone has really bad knees, then we don’t do it. But that is a red flag, and we will address it.
What are the “bad knees”? Did they have an impact injury at some point (bad fall, hit by a car, soccer injury, ect.) or is it just bad movement? Is it just a lack of strength?
Great question!
Caveman food – meat, fish, chicken, fruit, vegetables, nuts, ect.
Exactly! For most people it’s a matter of better food AND slightly less calories.
And this is where we have a choice.
Most of my clients feel awesome at about 20% bodyfat. They’re lean, skinny, and still have breasts.
Some of my clients really want to be 14%, 16%, or 18% bodyfat. That lean, most girls are going to have a lot less in the breast department.
14% is still healthy, and isn’t uncommon for many women who are pro athletes. It’s just different.
And that’s what’s great – you can have what ever you want. What ever you like and prefer.
There’s no rules. I’m not here to say what kind of body you should want.
I’m just here to help you get what ever kind of body you want.
In the years I’ve been doing this, one thing I know for sure is that there is no consensus on what is hot.
People think everyone would agree on what’s hot, but you’d be shocked by the variance in opinions.
I for one- like this look.
Her AND Alba’s body…thin but toned.
like Josh said, everyone has a different opinion on “hot”.
Ummm, I think those are real. And they are nice.
No, bill. They’re not real. They’re Playboy/VS boobs aka American boobs. Not real.
I think being really toned and lean is beautiful too! When you reach your percent fat in which you start losing bust fat then I think women should just wear padded bras if they want that effect. That’s what I do.
The busty look I think is overrated; breasts are still fat! I can never forget how amusing it is to see a really busty women try and jog. I think being athletic is more important than trying to get curves in all the right areas; people can’t control where they lose and gain fat.
Agree 100%.
Plus I think clothes fit better/nicer when you’re lean and toned rather than having curves. But, again just my opinion…
I really liked this article! Thank you. I think she has great eating and exercising habits, and I googled what workouts and foods she ate and got this article.
In the newest article of Shape she said her boobs are real… I believe it. You can tell when someone has fake breasts, they have a rounding effect at the top she doesn’t have that.
Wow, Marisa is smoking! I currently use a at home workout routine like this one:
http://www.myfit.ca/fitnessprograms/viewprogram.asp?title=At%20Home%20Training%20|%20Home&programid=1069
Riiight… and Michael Jackson (RIP) said he had only had two nose surgeries… and no other plastic surgery.
Wow, as a female I think Marisa looks great. I don’t think Marissa can help her bone structure or the fact that she is long and thin. My daugher has the exact build, with large natural breasts (just like Marissa). My daughter eats all the time, and I have to admit she does enjoy junk food too. Unfortunately, for some, genetics play a role in our body types. I’m built similar, but I’m short, but very lean. Not every female is built curvy, there a quite a few women who are built slim with no hips or curves. I guess I’m just aggravated with people who constantly pick apart slim people who aren’t curvy. I agree with Nicole about Marissa’s breasts.
Just an FYI – I’m a 41 year old mom of 3 teenage daughters. All 3 daughters built totally different (slim but different).
Josh,
you wrote in the comments “Some of my clients really want to be 14%, 16%, or 18% bodyfat”.
So what bodyfat do you think Marisa Miller has?
Marisa Miller rocks!
While we are not all genetically built that way (long, slim and endowed), with the proper diet and exercise we can all live fit & healthy lives and look awesome, too.
Thanks for the fab photos.
Yes Josh, write that article(s) on squats and knees and toes. I like what you have said so far but a few articles would be good information.